


Not One Moment More

by Nevcolleil



Series: Moments Like These [4]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, Referenced Past Mild Non-con, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:43:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: The last time Harper Hayes was in town, she drugged and threatened Jack to get to Mac.Maybe hunting down the bad guy for a knockdown, drag-out brawl is more Jack's style than Mac's, but it's too late to remind Mac of that after Hayes reveals a few details about her last visit that Mac hadn't been aware of.





	Not One Moment More

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Crazy Came Visiting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910617) by [KatieComma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma/pseuds/KatieComma). 



> KatieComma oh so graciously permitted me to write this little thing - nowhere near as good as her original fic, so go read it - as if the events of that story happened in the universe I created in this series. 
> 
> For those of you who wanted to see Mac get a little of his own back after being threatened then rescued multiple times throughout these ficlets... Hopefully this piece will help balance out the scales! 
> 
> I feel a bit shaky about this one. An out of state trip over the weekend kind of interrupted by creative flow, so let me know what you think.
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for your support and interest throughout the series! Thank you katikat and KatieComma, for letting me express my love of your work through my writing. And thanks, again, tommino for the prompt that started it all!

Mac has, more or less, come to terms by now with the sheer number and combined talents of the many people who would risk their own freedom and safety just for the chance to kill him. He has a state of the art security system in place now, and - since Harper Hayes attacked Jack back at his place - Mattie supervises semi-regular security checks on the home of each member of the team.

But - on the topic of Jack...

It’s possible that maybe Mac doesn’t have quite the same grasp on the reality of Jack having as many enemies of his own - probably more. Mac doesn’t react... well when confronted by them.

Case in point: the ruins of the veterinary office where Mac hunted Hayes after she limped away from their last encounter in need of medical attention.

Mac isn’t necessarily much better off. He just knows that that deep pain on his left side is a fractured rib. He’s popped the two fingers on his left hand back into their sockets, so they’re mostly useful, but they’re swelling steadily, and his fingertips tingle just the slightest bit. There’s surely a bruise covering the right of his jaw - it feels like there is - and he’s sprained his right angle.

In other words, Mac’s holding up, but he won’t be for long if the tac team Jack should be leading this way don’t arrive soon, or if Mac doesn’t find some other way to end this.

“You know, Blondie, you are every bit the pain in the ass that Murdoc said you are,” Hayes calls out from wherever she’s taken cover in the barn-like structure behind the clinic proper where they’ve ended up. Mac’s slumped behind a stack of feed bags sitting atop a couple of hay bells, trying to recreate the little trick he’d pulled in the Bermuda Triangle. This time he’s using farm equipment, a generator, some chickenwire, and parts of the disassembled doggie treadmill Mac had found back in the office. “I can not _believe_ he gets an actual kick out of this.”

“Maybe he’s just better at being a villain than you are,” Mac can’t resist calling back at her. 

“Maybe,” she agrees easily. _Too_ easily, from... somewhere.

Mac strips the wires he’s been stripping faster.

“Or maybe he just doesn’t know where to aim,” Hayes says, which is the least complimentary thing Mac’s heard her say about Murdoc so far. And that’s saying something. She claims to feel indebted to the man for springing her from prison, but Hayes doesn’t pretend to be happy about it. “I promise you, the next time I get a sight on Jack Dalton... I will not walk away until I’ve given you a handsome corpse to cry over, Macgyver.”

Mac’s fingers fumble.

It takes him a beat, but at least his voice doesn’t waver as he says back, “Sounds like a plan. Of course, it depends on you getting to walk away from me first, so...”

It’s not a bad imitation of cool and collected, considering Mac’s whole body trembles slightly at the reminder of how close Harper Hayes came to doing just what she’s promised, the time she surprised Jack in his apartment. She had drugged Jack, then. Tied him up and held a gun on him... A million nightmare alternatives to the way things actually played out could have occurred - and do, occasionally, when Mac dreams.

Hayes laughs, loud and light for a woman with such a dark mind and heart. 

“Oh, Precious... You don’t have to play the tough guy act for me,” she taunts. “That’s your boyfriend’s job, from what I understand. Pity he’s not here right now.”

Mac just about has the last improvised circuit connected and ready to power up the small supermagnet he’s built. It won’t create the same, dramatic effect as the one he’d built back on that island - but it should agitate the metal plate in Hayes’s head badly enough to give Mac an advantage in finding her and-

One creak. One creak is all the warning Mac gets - and it seems to come out of nowhere.

Luckily, it’s the only warning Mac needs. He ducks and rolls to the side, ending up on his back with Hayes between himself and the supermagnet. Dust and hay and some sort of feed have exploded into the air with the vicious kick Hayes landed right where Mac’s head had been with her steel-toed boots.

Hayes barely takes a moment to balance herself before she launches herself at him again, headed into a straddle across Mac’s stomach, fist already raised high and ready to fly free.

Mac beats her to it, catching her jaw in a sharp upwards punch as soon as she descends far enough for him to reach.

Hayes’s head snaps back from it, even as she lands on top of Mac, with enough force that he doubles up around her, all of the air leaving him at once.

Hayes punches Mac back, even before she’s recovered from the blow she took herself, and even though she’s aiming blindly, her punch hits nearly home, glancing off of Mac’s right cheekbone hard enough to break the skin.

Mac falls onto his back, momentarily fighting bright and dark spots at the edges of his vision, gasping for breath.

Hayes turns the grunt of pain Mac’s drawn out of her into a disturbing, empty-sounding laugh. “Oh... Oh, yeah. I _definitely_ had a better time playing with your man, baby boy.”

Then - and it isn’t just the mild head trauma that makes it difficult for Mac to process this, to grasp what Hayes is doing - she slides her body down against Mac’s, until she’s straddling his hips instead, rubbing against him in a crudely suggestive manner.

“You’re not even into the game like he was,” she says, with an exaggerated pout she can only hold for a moment before it morphs into a devilish smirk.

“Wh-What?” Mac asks.

Hayes’s fist flies at him again - this time targeted right between his eyes.

Mac dodges, twisting his torso sharply so that Hayes’s punch lands in the dirt and she shouts at the jarring contact. Mac uses the opportunity to shove her aside and off of him, but he isn’t free of her yet.

Even as Mac rolls over, so he can rise onto his hands and knees, Hayes twists her torso so she can grab Mac by the wrist, then deftly flips her body backwards, using her grip on Mac as leverage.

She lands, laid flat along Mac’s back, wrapping one arm around his neck so tightly, he’s forced to drop onto his stomach on the dirt floor so he can free his hands to claw at the vice restricting his airway.

As soon as she has Mac prone again, Hayes eases up enough that Mac can breathe.

Mac wonders whether it’s a good or a bad thing that she doesn’t just choke him out and drag him away to be delivered to Murdoc. She doesn’t waste time showing him.

Hayes leans in, lips right beside Mac’s ear - breasts pressing between his shoulderblades - and says, in a creepy imitation of actual cheer, “Didn’t _Jack_ tell you, sweetie? The last time I was in town... He and I had a long, _long_ talk while we waited for you to show.”

She draws out the word ‘long’ in a way that somehow perfectly communicates that she isn’t talking about Jack’s conversational skills. The way she speaks to Mac, voice dripping with a predatory kind of sex... is bad enough, but what she seems to be insinuating-

“Congratulations on that, by the way,” Hayes continues, as Mac’s mind stutters. “Here I thought, with all that campy Southern charm, that big bad Jack Dalton might just be compensating for a little something... But boy was I wrong.”

That’s. 

That’s not- 

Actually, it’s _entirely_ possible, isn’t it? With Jack drugged and tied to a chair... Hayes could have done any number of things, even beyond and besides the things in Mac’s nightmares. Her having snapped Jack’s neck as he slept, leaving his body for Mac to find... Hayes having carved Jack into pieces- Hayes’s gun going off just as Mac entered the room, opening up a bloody hole in Jack’s chest - or his head - as Mac watched...

Hayes could have hurt Jack however she liked. She could have _touched_ him however she wanted.

Mac’s no stranger by now to the perverse ways a enemy may try to exert his (or her) dominance over an adversary, but somehow it had never occurred to Mac that maybe Jack himself has experienced that kind of power play. Much less recently, at the hands of a woman who Mac’s walked in on preparing to shoot Jack twice now...

That Jack might have been made to feel the same things that Mac has, after experiencing something similar-

“You don’t want to tell me this,” Mac says calmly, trying to dig out the thought before it can take root while he isn’t prepared to think through it.

Hayes grins like she’s found a of spot to chew on - more like a bearing of teeth, really, than a grin.

“Aw, what’s the matter, Macgyver?” she taunts. “Jealous it happened? Or sorry that you missed it?”

“You’re crazy,” Mac says, more to remind himself than to scold her. Even if she knocks him out right this second, there should be no time for Hayes to secure and transport him off of these premises - especially injured as she is - before Jack and the tac team arrive. But-

“It’s not too late,” Hayes teases. “I’m assuming good ol’ Jack is on his way here right now. How about this... I knock you out, tie you up. And when the big guy gets here, I can arrange a little round two, just for you. What do you think about-”

Mac thinks it’s a blessing and a curse that he’d built a backup plan on his way out to the barn, just in case he couldn’t find what he needed for his first choice of how to incapacitate Hayes long enough for Jack and the team to catch up with them.

It’s a blessing because it seems clear now that Mac’s not going to get a chance to use his supermagnet. 

It’s a curse because Jack is going to be so pissed at him. Just before Mac ran off after Hayes, Jack _told_ Mac that he’d be pissed at him if Mac were to “go off, half-cocked, spoilin’ for a fight and get yourself hurt all on account of little old me.”

“It wouldn’t just be on account of you, Jack,” Mac tried telling him.

“Uh huh,” is what Jack said in response, sounding no less skeptical. “Sure, you got other reasons to wanna see Lady Terminator back behind bars - don’t we all," he continued. “But you can’t tell me that unfriendly visit Miss Hayes paid me a while back isn’t why you’ve seemed so dead-set on putting her there yourself these past few days. I’m just saying. Taking Hayes down was a team effort the last time... Let’s not go fixing what ain’t already broke.”

Mac agreed. And then he took after Hayes all on his own, with Jack shouting for him to stop in the background.

As Mac will activate the palm-sized device he built and stuck in his pocket, then retrieved just now, he’ll wish he had at least shouted back an ‘I’m sorry’ as he’d run. What the device can do _should_ affect Hayes more than it affects him. (Primarily.) But it’s not like anyone’s ever built a taser grenade out of an aquarium pump and a doggie pacemaker before - literally anything could happen next.

All Mac’s focused on as his fingers close around the device is Hayes’s imaginary hands on Jack’s bare skin and his own absolute certainty that - whether or not that scenario has ever been made real - there is a zero percent chance of him allowing to be so again.

The taser grendade sends a sudden, intense and searing wave of energy through Mac - up his hand, through his body, and out everywhere he and Hayes touch - and the woman shrieks as the current courses into and through her in turn.

Mac doesn’t remain conscious, during the explosion of the grenade, for long. He regrets what finding him will do to Jack, if he hasn’t regained awareness by the time Jack reaches them; he feels a dark sort of satisfaction at the static-like sound the current seems to make as it meets Hayes’s metal implants.

And then everything goes white.

The world wavers back into existence an indeterminable amount of time later, which Mac guesses not to have been long, since he and Hayes are still alone. 

He’s burned the hand that was holding the taser grenade, he feels achy and shaky all over, and his head throbs dully - but his vision’s clear and his pulse seems only slightly elevated. All good things.

Technically, it’s also a good thing that Hayes is softly groaning, teeth chattering and body trembling slightly. Mac didn’t electrocute her enough to knock her out, but then he didn’t electrocute her so much that she _died_ either. And she doesn’t seem to be keen on going anywhere, anyway.

The shock of the taser grenade tossed Hayes to the side, off of Mac, and Mac pulls himself up into a sitting position to look her over.

She’s already looking right back at him.

“What... the fuck... is wrong... with you?” she says, in a voice too strained to indicate whether or not she’s aware of the irony in her words.

“I’ve just been electrocuted by my own handmade taser grenade,” Mac says simply, not sounding much better, but at least with enough breath that he doesn’t have to pause every couple of seconds to keep speaking. “Now go the fuck to sleep already,” he barks at Hayes.

Nevermind the touching - Mac doesn’t even want Hayes to _look_ at Jack, ever again. He tried not to think about it, but now that he has, he’s honestly glad that the only thing he’d had in his pocket the moment the thought first struck was a little taser grenade. 

Hayes laughs what sounds suspiciously like a genuine, if pain-stuttered, laugh. 

“Fuck, okay,” she mutters, like she’s actually half knocked out already. “Okay... I see it. Fucking Murdoc...”

Then she closes her eyes... and her breaths start to even out.

Mac almost laughs himself. A little puff of a sort of hysterical laughter bursts out of him before he cuts it off - laughing hurts at the moment, and Mac groans, lying back down.

He hears Jack’s urgent voice just as he’s about to drift back off to sleep himself, and it’s one of the best sounds Mac’s ever heard. 

“Mac! _Mac_?”

“Over here!” Mac calls, beginning the unpleasant work of once more dragging himself up off the ground.

He’s made it to his feet by the time he’s swept up into Jack’s strong, black-clad arms - in Jack’s scent - and the combination nearly steals Mac’s strength the way that Jack’s voice always calms his mind.

Luckily, Mac manages to stay upright, despite the temptation to just let himself fall into Jack’s embrace, because honestly... Jack feels somewhat unsteady on his legs as well.

He doesn’t even say anything to Mac, for long moments - which is even more telling; he just holds Mac like this, in front of the entire tac team as they rush around in the background, examining Hayes’s condition, securing her for transport.

“Not even gonna tell you I told you so,” Jack finally mutters, like he’s letting Mac in on a conversation that’s already been happening in his head. 

Mac joins in easily. “Yeah, you will.”

Jack turns his face into the side of Mac’s, briefly, before finally stepping back far enough that they can look at one another.

“Okay, yeah, I will, but I’ll wait til you don’t look like you just went a round with a Mack truck and somehow lived to tell the tale,” Jack says. 

It’s not an unusual choice of words, but it catches Mac’s notice all the same. 

‘ _I can arrange a little round two, just for you...,_ ’ he hears in his head.

Out loud, he agrees, “I’m sure it’ll keep.”

But maybe his thoughts show themselves in his face somehow - or in his eyes. Jack goes still and his gaze turns searching as he watches Mac. 

Mac wonders if this is what Jack has felt, all the times he’s done everything in his power to protect Mac and Mac’s somehow ended up hurt anyhow. Or the times that Mac has tried to protect _him_ , by keeping something secret, only for the truth to come out all the same.

Mac’s no stranger, either, to worrying about his lover. That time Hayes had Jack, about the fourth time Mac’s call went straight to voicemail, Mac felt like his heart was going to beat its way out of his chest. That time in New Orleans... Mac hadn’t known whether Jack was even still alive in that crematorium. That the Belgians hadn’t shot him in the head and were just disposing of his body. He’d driven that car head-on into a brick wall, sure to be surrounded in moments by armed men, knowing only that he’d take any risk if it meant even the possibility of saving Jack from harm.

Mac’s never felt like he’s failed to do that before - but he feels it now, even with Harper Hayes physically incapacitated and being delivered into Phoenix custody as they speak. He almost wants to avoid Jack’s gaze, to wallow in his strange new understanding of what it means to win and still feel at a loss.

But that’ll keep too.

“Hey, man. Do we need to bring that EMT to you first? You look like-”

Mac cradles Jack’s face in both his hands and presses their foreheads together in one of Jack’s signature moves, when he feels like Mac may be in need of comfort and he hasn’t found the words yet to give it - or when he needs comfort himself and he just isn’t sure it’s his place to ask for it.

Jack goes quiet.

Later, after Mac’s shared the story of what happened a the veterinary office - but before he’s addressed what story Hayes shared with him - Jack says, “You know, I was probably only minutes away when you fried both Hayes _and_ yourself. You could have just kept her talking. You knew she wanted to hand you over to Murdoc in one piece.”

Channeling his inner Jack for one last time today, Mac admits a truth he’ll try his best to feel bad about later.

“It was worth it to shut her up,” he says.

He had warned her, after all.

She didn’t want to tell him anything that made her seem like an even bigger threat to Jack than she already presented. Mac’s more than used to being both threatened and having Jack threatened, as well, but-

If there’s one thing Mac is _not_ naive enough to misunderstand - about himself - it’s that there’s simply no overestimating what he will do in the case of the latter.


End file.
